Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1887-07-01
Leave go. girl! lnen-
"Help! help, she has stabbed mel"

ION, Bougwan. heip! hcip! the rock
fallsp'
Leave go, girl! Then"
'Help! help, she has stabbed mel"
BY now we are running down the passage
and this is what the light from the lamp
falls on. The door Of rock is slowly closing
down; it is not three feet from the floor.
Near it struggle Foulata and Glgo0l. TIE
red blood of the former runs 10 her knee,
but still me brave girl holds the old witch
who fights like a wildcat. An! she is free
FOulata falls, and Gagool throws herself on
the ground, to twist herself like snake
through the crack of the closing stone. She
is under-ah, God! too latel too la.e. The
stone nips her, and she yelis in agony.
Down, down it comes, all the thirty tons of
it slowly pressing her old body against the
rock below Shrek upon SHREK, such as
we never heard, then a long sickening
crunch, and the door was shut just as we,
rushing down the passage, hur,ei ourselves
against it,
1t was all done i'll four seconds.
Then we turn d to FOulata. The poor girl
was stabbed in the body and could not, J
saw, live long
"Ah? Bougwan, diew gasped the beau.
tiful creature. "She crept out-Gagool; ]
did not see her, | was faint-and the door
began to fall then she came back and was
looking up the plth-And | saw her come in
through the slowly falling door, and caught
her AMI held her, and she .tabb sd me- and |
die, Bouswan."
Poor girl! poor girI.' Good cried; and
then, as he could DO nothing else, he fell TO
kissing her.
"Bougwan," she said after pause, us
MacumazalIn thereP it grows so dark | can
not see"
''liere | am, FOulata"
'MacumaZhan, be my tongue for a mo-
ment, pray thee, for B)ugwan cannot I'M
derstand me- and before l go into the dark
ness-I would speak word"
Say on, FOuIata, will render it."
Say to my lord, Bougwan, that love
him, and that | am glad TO die because l
know that lie cannot cumber his life with
me, for the sun cannot mate with the dark
ness, nor the white with the black.
Say that at times have felt as though
there were a bird in my bosom, which would
one day fly hence and sing elsewhere; even
now, though | cannot lift my hand, and my
brain grows cold, do not feel us though my
heart were dying; it is 50 full of love that
could live a thousand years, and yet be
young Say that if | live again, mayhap |
shall see him in the stars, and that will
search them all, though perchance | should
there still be black and lie would-stil b.
white. Say-nay, Macumazahn, say no
more, save that | love Oh, hold me
closer, BOugwan, | cannot feel thine arms
ola Oh?"
"Shc is dead-she is dead?" said Good, ris
ing in grief, the tears running down his
honest face
You need not let that trouble you, old
fellow said Sir Henry.
'Eh!' said G lOd; what do you mean?'
81 mean that you will soon be in posi-
ton TO join her. Man, don't you see that
we are buried aiiVe"'
For few minutes we stood Mortified there
over the corpse Of FouIata. All the man
hood seemed to have gone out of uS. The
tirSt shock Of this idea of the slow and mis-
cradle end that awaited Us was Overpower-
Ing. We saw it all now; that fiend Gagool
had planned this snare for us from the first.
1t would have been just the jest that her
evil mind would have rcjoiced in, the idea of
the three white men, whom for some rea-
son of her own, she had always hated. slow
ly perlshing of thirst and hunger in the COM
pany of the treasure they had coveted. |
saw the point of that sheer of hers about
eating and drinking the diamonds now. Per
haps somebody had tried to serve the poor
Obi don III the same way, when he abandon
eli the skin full of jewels.
This will never do" said Sir Henry,
hoar ely; the lamp will soon go out Let
us see If we can't find the spring that works
the rock
We sprung forward with desperate ener-
gy, and standing in a bloody ooze began to
feel up and down the door and the sides of
the passage. But no kI o. or spring could
we discover
Dep md on it, | said, at does not work
from the inside; if it did GagOol would not
have risked trying to crawl underneath the
stone. 1t was the knowledge of this that
made her try 10 escape ut all hazards, curse
her"
AT all events" said Sir Henry with a
hard little laugh, 'retributiOn was swift;
hers was almost as awful an end as ours is
likely to be- We can do nothing with the
door; let IA 20 back to the treasure room"
We turned and went and as we did so
perceived by the unfinished wall across the
passage the basket of food which poor Fou-
lata had carried. took it up, ami
brought it with me back to that accurspd
treasme-Chamber that was to be our grave.
Then we went back and revcrcntly bore in
F0ulata'S corpse, laying it on the floor by
the boxes of coin.
Let us divide the food" said Sir Henry,
80 as to make 1t last as long as possible"
Accordingly we did 80. 1t would wo reck-
oned, make four enthusiastically small meals
for each of us, enough, say, to support life
for couple of DAYS. Besides the bill
tong or dried gametlesh there were two
gourds of water, each holding about a quart.
Now said Sir Henry, "lct us eat and
drink, for tomorrow we die"
We each eat a small portion of the "bil-
tong and drank II sip of water We had,
nee Hess 10 say, but little appetite, though
we were sadly in need of food, and felt bet
ter after swallowing it. Ticn we got ND
and made systematic examination of the
walls ot our prison house, III the faint hope
of tinuiug some means of exit sounding
them and the floors carefully.
There was none II was not probable
that there would be oua to treaSure-cham-
Der.
The lamp began to burn dian. The fat
WAS nearly exhausted.
"Qaatcrmoja," said Sir Helrv, what is
he time your watch goes
drew it out and 10 pllcd at it. Itwas SIX
O'Clock; we had entered the cave ut eleven.
'1nladoos Will miss us | suggested. "If
we do not return Tonight, he will search for
us III the morning, Curtis
Tile may search N vain. lie does not
KNOW the secret Of the door, not even where
It Is. No living p'r>oa knew it Yesterday,
except Gagool. To-lay NJ one knows it.
Even II he found the door he could not
break it down. All the Kukuana army
could not break through five feet of living
rock. My friends. Sc nothing for it but
tn bow ourselves to the Will of the Almighty.
Inc search for treasure has brought many
to a bad end; We shall 20 to swell their num-
bern
Inc lamp grew DINNER yet
Presently it hIred up and showed the
whole scene in bold relief, the great mass of
White tuSks, the boxes full of gold. the
corpse of poor Fouatl street he'd before
them, the golt-Skin full of treasure, the dim
glimmer of the diamonds and the wild.
wan faces of us three white men, seated
there awaiting death by starvation.
Suddenly 1t sunk anu expired.
CHAPTER XYIu
VIZ ABANDON HOPE.
can give no adequate description of the
horrors OF the night which followed. Merci-
fl1llN fhny